ALBANY - In an observance commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and rekindling his passion for freedom from suffering, the Empire State Plaza Conventional Center played host to gospel songs - one delivered by 12-year-old phenom Joshua King - and impassioned oration, all while in the nation's Capital, the first African-American president took the oath of office for his second term.

"As we move into this new dimension and look back over 2012 many of us have become complacent now, we are sluggish," said keynote speaker Rev. Cordelia Wallace, first lady and senior associate pastor of the Agape Cathedral in Brooklyn. She spoke of the civil rights' movements achievements, of which King was intrinsic, that gave African-Americans the right to vote and allowed Barack Obama to assume the office of president in 2009.

"We have elected another president and in these next few moments he will take his oath and we will call him Pres. Obama - again," said Wallace.

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In tribute to a person that, in part, made possible the inauguration of an African-American president, Herbert C. Thorpe, a retired airman, was presented with an award for humanitarian work by the state.

A Brooklyn native, Thorpe enlisted in the Army Reserves in 1942, underwent training, and became part of the Tuskegee Airman, earning his B-25 Pilot's Wings in October 1945 as one of the first black military combat pilots in the nation's history. After the war, he worked at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome before retiring in 1982 and later serving as a counselor at Mohawk Valley Community College.

While acknowledging that an African-American now sits in the Oval Office, Wallace indicated the nation must not sit on its laurels, having been confronted with sharp realities throughout 2012: the fiscal cliff, the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and the Newtown massacre.

"We've lost lives through violence and we've come to the place now that we look at America and say, 'What is this?'" Wallace said. "As we sit here this morning we must be reminded that there must be a duty and a responsibility that we must take on. Anytime a people have become lax in their duties and responsibilities it means it is because they are no longer a part of a team."